Today's Lilac Update
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Movies in the Bowl
General Information
Highland Park is a beautiful park that is host to many fun activities, events and interesting attractions. Highland Park offers the Lilac Festival in May, where there are games, crafts, food and fun! The Lamberton Conservatory, which is a beautiful collection of plants from many different places, is open all tear around. Many memorials and gardens are located in the park, from The Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Aids Remembrance Garden. The lily pond provides a natural skating rink in the winter. A softball diamond is also available for use.
The Lilac Arches and Lamberton Conservatory are available for weddings and pictures reservations. The Sunken Garden is also available for rental, but limited to pictures only.
For information and reservations please call 585 753-PARK (7275) or go to our Online Weddings Reservation System.
Location and Directions
The Administrative Park Office is located at 171 Reservoir Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620.
Click to get detailed directions.
Download park map (340k PDF).
View GIS photo of the park.
History
Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to seem like a natural occurrence of trees, shrubs and flowers, Highland Park is actually a completely planned—and planted—arboretum or “tree garden.” In addition to over 1200 lilac shrubs, the park boasts a Japanese Maple collection, 35 varieties of sweet-smelling magnolias, a barberry collection, a rock garden with dwarf evergreens, 700 varieties of rhododendron, azaleas, mountain laurel and andromeda, horse chestnuts, spring bulbs and wildflowers and a large number of trees. The park’s pansy bed features 10,000 plants, designed into an oval floral “carpet” with a new pattern each year.
Visit the The Landmark Society of Western New York—Olmsted Parks for more information.
Rules and Regulations
Highland Park is open daily 7:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. and has a carry in-carry out rule, which means you must take all your garbage with you for disposal after leaving the park. Glass is not allowed. All pets must be leashed and you are responsible for cleaning up after them.
For a complete listing of the Parks regulations download the Monroe County Parks Law document (52k PDF).
Lamberton Conservatory
Exhibits within the conservatory change five times a year and feature seasonal floral displays and unique plantings. The Main Dome protects the Tropical Forest Display and other climate-controlled rooms contain collections of exotic plants, desert plants, “economic use plants” such as banana and coffee trees and house plants. Admission is free for youth between the ages of 0-5, $1.00 per visit for youth between the ages of 6-18 and seniors aged 62 and up, and $2.00 for adults between the ages of 19-61. The Conservatory is open 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Call 585 753-7270 for more information.
Warner Castle and Sunken Garden
A castled Gothic-styled residence that was the home of Rochester attorney and newspaper editor Horatio Gates Warner. This A castled Gothic-style residencehistoric castle is the headquarters for the Rochester Civic Garden Center. The Sunken Garden behind the Castle is a popular site for wedding photographs. For information and reservations please call 585 753-7275 or go to our Online Weddings Reservation System. Visit the Rochester Civic Garden Park for more information.
Lilac Arches
Located near the corner of Highland and South Avenues, the Lilac Arches features interesting architectural form, a brick patio and benches. This site is available for rent for small receptions and weddings. For information and reservations please call 585 753-PARK (7275) or go to our Online Weddings Reservation System.
Highland Park Bowl
An outdoor amphitheater used for summertime concerts, Shakespeare in the Park and Movies in the Bowl series.
Memorials
Greater Rochester Vietnam Veteran's Memorial
A memorial that commemorates the service, valor, and sacrifice of more than 28,000 Vietnam Veterans from our region as well as the 280 men who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
AIDS Memorial
A memorial that allows people who have been affected by the AIDS virus a quiet place for reflection.
Victims Rights Memorial
A memorial that recognizes members of our community that have been victims of violent crimes.
The History of the Warner Castle Sunken Garden
The Sunken Garden on the grounds of historic Warner Castle in Highland Park is one of Rochester’s landscape architectural treasures. The garden was designed by noted Landscape Architect Alling Stephen DeForest, 1875-1957.
Warner Castle was designed by Horatio Gates Warner and built as his private residence in 1854. In 1912, Frank and Merry Ackerman Dennis, owners of the Dennis Candy Factory and candy stores purchased it. They commissioned DeForest to design gardens for the site beginning around 1920. His plan for the grounds included the Sunken Garden completed in 1930, a courtyard, rose and woodland gardens.
Alling Stephen DeForest, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, contributed to a wide variety of landscape designs, both public and private, during the early 20th Century. He received most of his early training at the prestigious Olmsted Brothers firm in Brookline, Massachusetts. Frederick Law Olmsted, considered the father of landscape architecture in America, was the founder of the firm. DeForest’s most notable projects were the original landscape of the George Eastman House on East Avenue in Rochester and the gardens of the Harbel Manor, the Akron, Ohio home of Harvey Firestone. Although the majority of his designs were the landscapes of private estates, he also designed campuses, housing developments, cemeteries and parks.
Frank Dennis died in 1927 and Merry Dennis continued to live in the castle until her death in 1936. Dennis’ relatives contested her will and the estate was not settled until eight years after her death. The castle became a sanitarium in 1944 when it was purchased from the estate by Christopher Gainers a self-styled naturopath.
The City of Rochester bought the property in 1951 and the castle and grounds became part of Highland Park, an internationally known arboretum. The City’s Parks Department’s offices and herbarium were located in the castle and the Sunken Garden became a popular location for weddings and wedding photographers. The Rochester Civic Garden Center’s headquarters now occupy the building.
In 1961 an agreement between the City of Rochester and the County of Monroe turned the responsibility of the maintenance of the castle grounds and Rochester’s major parks over to the Monroe County Parks Department.
Time, weather and vandalism took their toll of the garden’s infrastructure and in 1988 the garden was closed to the public because of the Monroe County Parks Department’s concern for visitors’ safety. A year-long study of the site, funded by the Institute for Museum Services, was undertaken by Doell and Doell, Historic Landscape Preservation Planners and Environmental Design and Research, P.C. of Syracuse, NY.
Restoration of the Sunken Garden’s infrastructure was completed in October 1991, with funds from Monroe County and an Environmental Quality Bond Act Grant. The garden’s stone walls were repointed and missing stones replaced. Paving stones, an important landscape design element included in DeForest’s design for the garden were also replaced.
The historically appropriate plant material was replaced through the cooperative efforts of The Landmark Society of Western New York, the Seventh District of the Federated Garden Clubs, and the Genesee Finger Lakes Nursery and Landscape Association in 1993. The plant material restoration project received the New York State Preservation League’s Historic Landscape Preservation Award in 1995 and illustrates what can be accomplished through the cooperative efforts of the public and private sector.
The Warner Castle Sunken Garden, a significant part of the landscape heritage of Rochester, New York, provides residents and visitors alike with the opportunity to view a planned landscape designed by a noted landscape architect.
—Jean M. Czerkas, Landscape Historian
